Tulip's Tale
by thecatclouder
Summary: Corresponds with my other Hunger Games story: Three Girls. This is a one shot from the point of view of the female District 12 tribute from the start of the Hunger Games. Rated T because it is the Hunger Games. Disclaimer: the Hunger Games belong to Suzanne Collins.


**Disclaimer: the Hunger Games belongs to Suzanne Collins. She owns the concept, and the characters except those which I create. **

**A/N: This story slots in with my other Hunger Games story: Three Girls. This story is in the point of view of the female District 12 tribute, Tulip Pendal. Read this story and review with comments. :) **

I had to run. In order to survive I had to run. That part was obvious for anybody to see, whether they were here in the arena or watching the Hunger Games live on TV. I envied the latter, I really did. There was not much I could do about it now.

Even if I ran, what would happen? Was there any point of going on? They would say: _that girl from District 12, which one was she again? _I was just another one, not standing out in the slightest. That did not win anybody sponsors, even if I lasted long into the games.

"Ladies and gentlemen, let the 68th annual Hunger Games begin!" the announcer shouted over the intercom. Sixty seconds, that counted down rapidly in my head and seemed to take a while as well.

60, 59, 58…

I should not have taken out so much tesserae, but we were starving. It increased my chances of being picked so much, and my two brothers and my sister were too old to take it out now. I was the youngest. They had been lucky. Despite Randall, my oldest brother, having over fifty entries by the end he had still not been picked. My tesserae had only started last year. My sister had said we could have made do, but I really wanted to help them. I did not want to see my family waste away.

55, 54, 53…

I'd started out looking weak, crying so hard when I was reaped. As a sixteen year old Seam girl, I should probably not have been that surprised. They'd needed to drag me up onto the stage. There was no need to say my name. The whole of Panem had heard it, but it felt like nobody cared. Nobody cared about yet another girl from District 12, sent to her doom. District 12, in 67 previous years of Hunger Games, only had one female Victor. And that was the first year the Hunger Games had ever been on. There had been no Careers that year. Surely there couldn't have been. She was no longer living.

50, 49, 48…

"I'm Tulip Pendal!" I'd yelled anyway. I'd forcibly pushed the escort out of my way to do that, her un-sturdy heels the only thing that made me strong enough to do even that. I needed to be remembered, although eventually all would forget.

Even my family. They knew that they were saying goodbye to me for the final time. Nobody expected me to win. Everybody knew I had no chance. Even my mentor.

45, 44, 43…

My mentor was the only living Victor from District 12, Haymitch Abernathy. He took one look at me and my district partner Cal before disappearing into his train carriage with a large bottle of some sort of spirit. At that point I guessed we were mostly on our own. That night all I did was eat, revel at the sensation of actually being full, then cried myself to sleep.

41, 40, 39…

The opening ceremonies were no better. My stylist treated me like dirt, and dressed me in something not much better. I was in a miner's outfit. Nobody, much less the fashion obsessed residents of the Capitol, would remember a girl dressed as a miner. I doubted that anybody cheered for our carriage in particular.

37, 36, 35…

Training was even worse. My competition looked even stronger up close. The Careers were vicious with the weapons on dummies. When I looked at them, I could see people there instead of just dummies. What I found really strange though was the girl from 8. She was younger than I was, but seemed to change. Her attempts to act tough from an outsider's perspective sometimes looked like fails, but she was impossibly daring with the girl from 1. I did not quite know what was going on there.

33, 32, 31…

On the first day I sat alone. Most of us did, except for the Careers of course. The following day, Cal came to sit with me. At first he talked about all the things that he had dreamed of doing, but that just got depressing. After that we just stayed silent, simply glad for the company of another living person.

A thought like that made me cringe.

29, 28, 27…

That afternoon, the wispy haired girl from 7 approached me. Her name was Mimi. She seemed very good at climbing, and confident although she did not practice much at all.

"You look confident," I had pointed out the obvious just a tad bitterly. Mimi had a chance. I didn't.

"Oh I am," she said.

"You think you will win?" I asked, unable to keep shock out of my voice even though I had thought it after she had seemed confident to begin with.

"Yes, but I won't be a Victor," Mimi said with utter confidence. "I'm confident that I won't kill anybody, and I will keep to that. In my own way, I will win."

I pondered that over for a few moments, looking into her eyes then making up my mind.

"In that case, I am confident that I will win too," I said, and Mimi smiled and hugged me. There was no offer of an alliance though. She was going to take care of that twelve year old boy from District 3 for as long as she could, and I was not going to intrude.

Nobody else wanted to ally with me though. There were many other alliances being formed but I was not a part of them.

25, 24, 23…

Mimi's words had somehow made me feel lighter. If I could get as far as I possibly could without killing anybody maybe that would be a win. The closest I had got to elation since I had been reaped did not last long. One of the Careers picked me off as a bloodbath victim, and they all mocked my unsuccessful attempts at weapons. I could not even lift a sword. Even if I didn't want to kill anybody I still wanted to defend myself.

It was not going to work though. I got a score of 3 for training. That would not get me any sponsors either. My dress, again, was forgettable. Most of the crowd weren't even paying attention in the interviews by District 12.

21, 20, 19…

And that brought us to now. The countdown had long started, and for the first time I actually paid attention to what surrounded me. I was near the middle, next to the twelve year old boy from District 3. It was my other side I was more scared of. The boy from 1 was there, but he did not glance at me at all. He was picking out the best weapons in the Cornocopia.

I could not run. I would never make it to the good supplies. I probably would not even make it to the forest to my left or my right. The cliffs were both definitely out. With the mountainous scenery, I might actually trip when running whether I grabbed anything or not.

16, 15, 14…

I had lost count at some point, and was expecting the gong at any second. The gong that invariably would mean my imminent doom, like it had for so many people in my district. District 12 was a small district; in the last few years I recognized most of the unfortunates from school. Whenever they showed the games, I watched the bare minimum or closed my eyes.

11, 10, 9…

It had to be like that in the other districts as well. Only the Careers looked completely well fed, the exception being that girl from 3 who had come from a richer family. It was easy to tell just by the clothes she had worn to her reaping. She also seemed to know that this game would surely be the death of her.

And even in the Career districts. Six Careers volunteered. They could not all win. Even in the winner's district one of them would not be coming home. That was the only rule of the Hunger Games, apart from not stepping off your platform before the sixty seconds were up: there could only be one Victor.

7, 6…

I cut my thoughts off completely and just pictured my family one last time.

5…

My sister, with her dark hair and blue eyes. Somehow she had developed that recessive gene although being from the Seam. It made her stand out, if only a little.

4, 3…

My brothers. They looked more ordinary, but they were so caring. They had cried so much when I had said goodbye to them.

2, 1…

Finally my parents. I thought of all the good things my whole family had done for me, then whispered "goodbye" into the air. The gong rang at that moment…

…and I didn't move. I didn't have to. This was the bloodbath. It would be quick and there was no chance that I could make it to either of the forests. If I ran now the Careers would get me. Why slow down the inevitable anyway.

To my surprise the boy from 1 did not just charge at me. He went for the weapon first. The twelve year old ran backwards, hiding into a good hiding place in one of the crags. I could probably make it that far but I would not follow him. They would definitely catch both of us if I did.

There were a few full beats until somebody seemed to notice that I was still there. I was not a target, but I did not have many survival skills either. There was still a doubt in my mind: maybe I should have run. I probably should have. My survival skills, although learning about them for three days, were so minute that I would probably accidentally poison myself.

If I ran I would not have any supplies. Sponsors would not get me anything; I doubted I even had sponsors. I would starve, and I had seen too many times how slow death from starvation was. It wasn't until the girl from 1 charged at me that I ran. I did not run for me, I ran for my family. If they saw I had just given up they probably would as well. Just for the moment of futility, I ran.

She caught up with me incredibly quickly, just a few steps after I had started to move, and pushed me over. I was on the ground then, looking up at her and I saw that she did not have any weapons. There was some chance she had been looking for weapons when she had seen me there, completely unmoving still on my starting block.

"P-please," I begged, watching as she hesitated. She just stared blankly for a moment, then punched me hard in the nose making my head snap backwards.

"I'm sorry," she said coldly before starting again. She jumped on top of me, punching my ribs and beating my body as hard as she could. At first I was screaming, then simply moaning. I tried not to look in her eyes but when I did I regretted it. It scared me.

She would not stop. She looked like she wanted to but she wouldn't. My only option would be to play dead, and wait her out. It was so hard, as every time she hit me again I screamed in agony. This was not usually how tributes died in the bloodbaths. Usually deaths were quick and relatively painless. It went on until I no longer had any energy to scream, or even moan. My world was just sheer agony, and I was only vaguely aware of the girl from 1 getting off me.

I had no idea how long it continued for. When I felt myself slipping away I did nothing to fight that sensation. Forget any supplies, I should have just run. Poisoning myself would have been less painful than this. It would have been relatively instant.

_They say when you die your life flashes before your eyes, _I thought, the only one of my thoughts that was not screaming in pain. For some reason it was oddly peaceful and I focused on it, but every time I tried pain ripped through my body again, refusing to be ignored.

An eternity seemed to pass before I heard cannons. My thoughts were just swirls now, unable to comprehend actual words. After all, I had been hit on the head a lot. I did not even have the capacity to count the cannons but wondered whether one of them was mine. Was this death? If this was death I was in hell.

My consciousness did not completely give out, not until I registered the lack of cannons again. Although my eyelids felt like they weighed a thousand tons I forced them to open, just slightly. Just for long enough to see the girl from 1 plunge a machete into my heart. That time it went completely dark. My life did not flash before my eyes. There was only one thought at the forefront of my mind as I drifted into eternal blackness.

_Thank you. _Thank you for making it stop.


End file.
